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The Unicorn in Captivity
The Unicorn in Captivity is the seventh episode of Season 7 and the overall seventy-eighth episode of The Venture Bros. Plot Doc Venture finds himself out of his element when he invents a teleporter with Billy and Pete White. The Monarch is invited by Dr. Mrs. The Monarch to join a supervillain team for a single caper, despite his protests that he only works solo. She promises that, in exchange for his one-time performance in a team heist, he'll be bumped up a full level in The Guild's EMA ranking. The Monarch grudgingly agrees to go to Tophet Tower to join a heist lead by Copycat, with Tunnel Vision, Ramburglar, Presto Change-O, Dot Com, and "Driver X" on the team. Having recently lost Tiny Eagle when a nonplussed Brock Samson crushed him to death, Copycat has The Monarch replace him as their "aerial reconnaissance" lookout. The group plan to break into VenTech Tower to steal Doc's groundbreaking new teleporter pads. Episode Cast * [[wikipedia:James_Urbaniak|'James Urbaniak']]: Dr. Venture, Phantom Limb * [[wikipedia:Patrick_Warburton|'Patrick Warburton']]: Brock Samson * [[Chris McCulloch|'Chris McCulloch']]: The Monarch, Pirate Captain, Sgt. Hatred, Pete White, Gen. Hunter Gathers, Roy Brisby, Valet * [[Doc Hammer|'Doc Hammer']]: Dr. Mrs. The Monarch, 21, Billy Quizboy * [[wikipedia:Mark Hamill|'Mark Hamill']]: Presto Change-O, Illuminati 1 * [[wikipedia:Toby_Huss|'Toby Huss']]: Copycat * [[wikipedia:Hal_Lublin|'Hal Lublin']]: Tunnel Vision, Bartender, Tiny Eagle * Mark Gagliardi: Ramburglar, Illuminati 2, Illuminati 3 * Annie Savage: Dot Com, Receptionist Connections to Previous Episodes * Gary grabs a box of Apple Mummy cereal out from the kitchen cupboard in The Monarch's house. The same cereal has previously been seen at the Venture compound being consumed by various members of the Venture family. * The Monarch boasts to Copycat's team that he could tell them Dr. Venture's sleep number (It's 25 - He's soft). This is a callback to Lindsey Wagner in Rusty's invisible harem asking, "What's your sleep number?", in ''Assisted Suicide''. * Dr. Venture asks the bartender at the Illuminati orgy for a Red Mocho Kooler, which is a "doctail" that Doc first mentioned way back in the Season 3 episode ''ORB''. * The bartender informs Doc that he is eating "orphan sashimi", which Doc promptly spits out. In [[Eeney, Meeney, Miney... Magic!|''Eeney, Meeney, Miney... Magic!]] Doc himself used parts from an orphan boy to make the Joy Can. Cultural references * Presto Change-O's whimsical voice is very similar to that of The Joker, the most famous supervillain from ''Batman: The Animated Series, who was also voiced by Mark Hamill. * Ramburglar's name is a play on ram (male sheep) and The Hamburglar from McDonaldland, a diminutive burglar in a domino mask and black-and-white striped shirt who would attempt to steal hamburgers from Ronald McDonald in McDonald's commercials. * Driver X is a reference to the mysterious driver Racer X from the manga/anime ''Speed Racer''. * The orgy sequence references both the eighteenth century French novel ''The 120 Days of Sodom'' by the Marquis de Sade and the 1999 Stanley Kubrick film ''Eyes Wide Shut''. * The footmen that let Dr. Venture into the party resemble characters from another Stanley Kubrick film, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Lyndon Barry Lyndon.] * The bar at the orgy resembles the bar from another Stanley Kubrick film, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shining_(film) The Shining.] * Dr. Venture is forced to choose between two doors: one holding a topless lady in a mask (implied to be Dr. Mrs. The Monarch), the other holding a large man in a tiger mask and bondage gear wearing a knife-tipped robotic strap-on. Illuminati 1 asks him if he's read the famous short story "The Lady, or The Tiger?" (1882), in which an accused man must similarly choose between two doors, each holding either a young woman or a ferocious starving tiger. ** The knife-tipped strap-on is itself a reference to the murder weapon for the crime of lust in the 1995 neo-noir film ''Seven''. Trivia * The tapestry featured in the episode is from a series of seven tapestries called [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunt_of_the_Unicorn The Hunt of the Unicorn.] They tell the story of a hunt, during which a unicorn is lured by a virgin, captured by hunters, killed, and then brought back to life in captivity, * First guest appearance by Mark Hamill, famous for portraying ''Star Wars''' Luke Skywalker and voicing The Joker in animated films, television shows, and video games. Kevin Conroy, his Batman counterpart from Batman: The Animated Series, has been voicing Captain Sunshine since the season 4 episode Handsome Ransom in 2009. * The Illuminati banner that Dr. Venture walks past in the simulation reads "ORDO - MUNDI - IMPERIUM" at the top, which roughly translates to "World Order Government" in Latin. The middle shows an owl with spread wings clutching the globe in its talons, superimposed over an eye in a pyramid design. A scroll at the bottom reads "GRATIAS AGO VOS CAN NOBIS", which roughly translates to "You can thank us" in Latin. *The Adult Swim broadcast contains adult language and nudity that is censored, however, the versions of the episode being sold on the Amazon, Google Play and iTunes stores are entirely uncensored. Category:Article stubs Category:Episodes Category:Season 7